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Japan Hints It May Revise an Apology on Sex Slaves

TOKYO — A top official hinted Thursday that Japan’s newly installed conservative government might seek to revise a nearly two-decade-old official apology to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II, a move that would most likely outrage South Korea and possibly other former victims of Japanese militarism.

Speaking a day after the new cabinet was named, the official, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who serves as the government’s top spokesman, refused to say clearly whether the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, an outspoken nationalist, would uphold the 1993 apology.

Mr. Suga said at a news conference that it would be “desirable for experts and historians to study” the so-called Kono Statement, which acknowledged the Imperial Army’s involvement in forcing thousands of captured Asian and Dutch women to provide sex for Japanese soldiers. Most historians say the women were coerced and were not prostitutes, as Mr. Abe and other nationalists have claimed in the past.

Mr. Suga also said, however, that the Abe government would uphold a broader apology, issued in 1995 to observe the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, to all victims of Japan’s colonialism and aggression.

Mr. Abe, who also served as prime minister in 2006 and 2007, has never been shy about his right-wing agenda, which includes calls for textbooks with a more patriotic tone. But after watching his popularity plummet in his last term as mainstream Japanese bridled at his hawkish stands, some analysts have suggested that he might be more restrained this time.

If Mr. Abe revises the apology, the move will run counter to the wishes of the United States. American officials say they have urged Mr. Abe to shelve calls to revise the Kono Statement to avoid increasing tensions with South Korea. The United States has been urging the two countries, its closest allies in the region, to increase cooperation as China is asserting more territorial claims and as North Korea appears to be continuing to strengthen its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The sex slaves issue remains highly emotional in South Korea, a former Japanese colony. On Thursday, the South Korean Foreign Ministry called on Japan not to forget its militaristic past.

The Kono Statement — named for the chief cabinet secretary who issued it, Yohei Kono — has long been a sore point for Japanese rightists, who deny either that the women were coerced or that the military had a hand in forcing them to become what many Japanese euphemistically call “comfort women.” These critics include Mr. Abe, who has repeatedly called for revising the statement, most recently during an internal Liberal Democratic Party election in September.

The issue, however, does not resonate broadly among the public, which remains averse to provoking other Asian countries over issues of history and territory, and Mr. Abe avoided talking about the matter during the national parliamentary elections this month that swept his Liberal Democrats back into power.

The sex slaves issue has rippled into other areas of tension before. During his final months in office, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea visited a group of islands claimed by both his nation and Japan in an apparent display of displeasure over Japan’s refusal to pay official compensation to South Korea’s few hundred surviving former sex slaves, now in their 80s.

South Korea’s newly elected president, Park Geun-hye, has also shown personal interest in the matter, attending United States Congressional hearings in 2007 that criticized Mr. Abe’s denials that the women were coerced.

A version of this article appears in print on December 28, 2012, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Japan Hints It May Revise An Apology On Sex Slaves. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe